


The Aurora

by decepticonsalem



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007), Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Noir, Improper Police Procedure, Minor Character Death, Multi, Rating subject to change, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, as in an oc, probably at least
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 08:10:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20306248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decepticonsalem/pseuds/decepticonsalem
Summary: Prowl gazed out dingy window of his private office on the top floor of a low-rise brownstone, taking in the city spread out around him. The dark apartment was illuminated only by the halogen glow of a single bare bulb. Another night working well into the early cycles of the morning on a case that was turning colder by the klik.In the distance, police sirens wailed. Over his personal dispatch radio, he heard the call that a body had been found.Another body added to the count.He heaved a sigh, processor whirring quietly for a clue that just. Wasn’t. There. Turning away from his perch near the window, Prowl grabbed his Detective badge and his service weapon from his desk and headed out to the reported scene of the crime. This was going to be a long night; he knew it.(Based off of an ongoing group rp)





	1. 2 AM, the first night.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy welcome to our lovingly crafted film noir au where Prowl is a tired detective, Jazz moonlights as a singer in an illegal bar, Orion pax runs a bookstore that's a cover for the mob, and Megatron is the mob.

Jazz was finishing up his final set for the night at The Aurora, a dingy out of the way nightclub that catered to Iacon's worst. The Polyhexian needed the money, though, and the easiest way to get money was to get all polished up and sing. The Aurora was the only place that let him keep the majority of his tips.

He dipped low over the stage as he sighed the final notes of the song, one leg over the edge of the short platform and one hitched up in a way he knew offered a peek of his hip cabling. He was holding the microphone like a lover. He looked effortless. He _felt_ like he was going to fall over. The patrons of the club tonight cheered for him, a couple loose credit chits getting tossed his way. He smirked at the crowd and gathered them up with a wink and a blown kiss.

Three blocks away, a bot screamed.

Jazz weaved through the crowd, tossing one of the credit chits to the bartender as he made his way to the back. His shift was supposed to be over half a cycle ago and he was tired. The next musician smiled at Jazz as she headed out towards the stage. "Goodnight Polyphony." His pseudonym. He… wasn't employed legally per se. Under the current government he couldn't be.

"Good luck Sotto Voce," he answered back with a soft, genuine smile. He took to the streets, transforming easily. He was too tired to make the trip all the way back to his apartment on the other side of town when he worked night shifts, so he had an arrangement to stay with a friend on late nights, a sleek bot named Metro. He spent a lot of nights with the eccentric little bot, his neighbors all knew him by name now. They had met working Aurora together and became close friends. Not long after that, they had become _close_ friends.

Three blocks away, a bot went silent.

Jazz easily made the three blocks to Metro's apartment complex and went to open the door. It didn't open immediately and Jazz tried typing the combination in again. The light turned green but the door didn't budge, it must've been jammed by something. He resigned himself to crawling in through the window of the habsuite and, after taking a cursory look around for pedestrians, easily scaled the wall and slid the window open.

The habsuite was dark and there was no sign of Metro. He must've gone out. Jazz could ask him about the door in the morning. Right now he just really wanted to wash the temporary paint off and recharge.

Only half a cycle later, he was awoken by blaring sirens and someone breaking in the main apartment door.

* * *

Prowl gazed out dingy window of his private office on the top floor of a low-rise brownstone, taking in the city spread out around him. The dark apartment was illuminated only by the halogen glow of a single bare bulb. Another night working well into the early cycles of the morning on a case that was turning colder by the klik.

In the distance, police sirens wailed. Over his personal dispatch radio, he heard the call that a body had been found.

Another body added to the count.

He heaved a sigh, processor whirring quietly for a clue that _just. Wasn’t. There._ Turning away from his perch near the window, Prowl grabbed his Detective badge and his service weapon from his desk and headed out to the reported scene of the crime. This was going to be a long night; he knew it.

He transformed smoothly into his alt-mode once he hit the street and sped off into the night, lights flashing but leaving his siren off. It wasn’t necessary at such a dark hour.

* * *

Jazz was just trying to see what was going on, disoriented from being interrupted mid recharge and ready to fight whoever was breaking into the apartment. He didn't have any time to make sense of the scene in front of him before someone shouted “Freeze!” and he was rushed up on. Jazz pushed back on instinct, falling hard on the floor with an undignified squawk. He could feel a dent in his plating, that was going to hurt bad tomorrow.

The mech pinning him was gruff and loud. "Stop resisting! You're under arrest, scumbag! Hope ya like rusting in prison!"

“Hey, Hey whoa! I’m not resisting, but what the Pit is going on?” Jazz fell limp on the floor under the Enforcer, hoping the brute would let up on how heavy he was leaning on him. He couldn’t reach any of his weapons with how he was pinned, not that he necessarily wanted a fight, and he also couldn’t reach any of his identification to let the mech know he was on the force.

The enforcer kept Jazz’s arm twisted at a painful angle, and snapped, "Just give it up and quit squirming, it's pathetic!" After a few more tense microkliks of grappling, the enforcer apparently realized that Jazz had pretty much gone completely still, and it was mostly just him moving around. The enforcer pressed the barrel of his gun very pointedly against Jazz’s helm, and barked out, "I'm with the Iacon Police Department. Here's what's gonna happen: I'm gonna stand up, then you're going to slowly put your servos behind your head, stand up, and face the wall. Try anything funny, and it's your spark, not mine."

Jazz stayed tense, gritting his teeth and trying to act as non-threatening as possible. He really didn't want to offline from a trigger happy cop tonight. "Yes sir."

Wasting no time, the cop drew a pair of stasis cuffs out of his subspace compartment and fixed them to Jazz’s wrists, giving a little satisfied smirk.

"This is Officer Barricade. The suspect has been captured," Barricade said into his comms. He gave Jazz a shove towards the door, and said "Start walking." with ice in his voice. Jazz didn't resist, easily walking towards the exist and filing the name away for later. He could've sword he'd heard the name Barricade before. He didn't work in his department but he had definitely heard the name.

Jazz made a horrified little static gasp when they walked past the body leaking on the living room floor, his energon going cold.

"Hmph, messy bit of work you did there, huh?" Barricade scoffed. They had to step around the body to leave, and from where Jazz stood, streaks of energon and oil on the floor caught and reflected the lights outside, giving off a sinister sheen. His voice was basically a whisper.

"I... didn't. I wouldn't have... Primus, Metro..."

Barricade snorted, and then couldn't resist mimicking the other mech, tuning his vocals to a higher-pitched frequency as he gasped melodramatically, "'Oh! Who, me? I-I... I didn't! I wouldn't have!' Yeah, alright, buddy," He barked out a short laugh. "Tell it to the judge."

They came out the front of the building, where the rest of the officers and a little gathering of curious bystanders were collected. Barricade immediately noticed a familiar face among the crowd, and swaggered over, dragging his captured culprit alongside him by the shoulder. "Well, well, well! If it isn't Prowler! Here to dazzle us all with your sleuthing skills?" Barricade leaned in close. "Here's a little math problem for you: One mech's dead, the other's alive. What does that add up to?" He clapped his servos together. "That's right! It's murder!"

* * *

"Barricade," Prowl greeted the approaching Enforcer with ice, "Allow me to do my job, and I'll allow you to do yours. Please escort your suspect to the Precinct, assuming you've actually done your job and read him his rights?" He quirked a judging optic ridge at the Enforcer without truly rising to the bait.

"If you'll excuse me, Officer..." Prowl exited the unwanted conversation before Barricade could reply and made his way into the building, traveling carefully up until he reached the broken-down door of the crime scene. With care, he stepped over the shattered pieces of door and made his way to the empty shell laying on the floor. Another body.

Prowl quickly began processing the scene in front of him. He would learn exactly who this poor mech was once he figured out what had happened, before the scene could become contaminated further.

The body was grey and the energon had started to congeal already, it had likely been here for at least an hour. he was face down on the floor in the energon pool and his neck cables had been crushed in, not enough to kill but definitely enough to silence. The cause of death became clear when Prowl flipped the body over: The casing around his spark had been smashed open after his chest plating was removed by some amount of force. A small rectangular section of the casing that remained had been cut out cleanly.

Prowl grimaced at the gruesome manner in which this bot was deactivated. He would have to requisition a full autopsy.

There were no signs of forced entry and there were two cubes of energon on the table. Whoever had killed this mech had been invited in. The only signs of a struggle were the door (Which Barricade had successfully wrecked even further) and a storage unit in the back that appeared to have been upended. Returning to full height, he mentally tagged the cubes for further analysis, then made his way over to the overturned storage unit.

It was mostly various novels and a few letters. There wasn't any official documentation to be seen and all of the letters were addressed to the current address and the same name: Adagio. Prowl narrowed his optics as he scanned over the documents. Adagio was a familiar name, but from where?

All of the letters had been previously opened but kept in the envelopes. They appeared to be love letters. None of them were signed. Of the five, three had similar handwriting and the other two were written differently. He examined the handwriting from each letter, cross-referencing them in his database for possible matches from previous crime scenes. He wasn't expecting any matches.

He returned to the body, scanning the surrounding area for any additional evidence to indicate what may have transpired before leaving the scene. He made his way out to the police barricade, seeking out the neighbors of the unfortunate mech.

He caught sight of one individual, identified as Orion Pax. "You are a neighbour of the crime scene, correct?" he asked as he approached. Better to get straight to the point than waste time with pleasantries. Orion nodded immediately.

“Yes Officer. I’m the one who placed the call. I saw an enforcer drag Jazz out of the building. I’ve lived next to Metro for a long time and can tell you, with confidence, Jazz would never hurt him. He’s an enforcer himself. I’m the next door neighbor, I was up all night reading and I can tell you what I heard.”

"Detective Prowl," Prowl introduced by way of correction on his title. It wasn't the first time he was misidentified. He flashed his badge for the mech. "I will be taking your statement for my records. Please state your name, and the sequence of events as you remember them."

Orion nodded again, slowly, “Sorry, Detective Prowl. My name is Orion Pax. I was reading a very interesting datapad so I was up far later than I usually am. I heard a short scream and some heaving thudding around 2 am. It sounded like a scuffle and footsteps. That’s nothing unusual, this is a rough neighborhood and spats happen all the time. Around 15 kliks later I heard what I can only figure was Jazz trying to get into the apartment to no response. Just some scuffling at the front door and the window. Jazz knows the code to the apartment, so there would have been no reason for him to try and break in unless something was wrong... so that’s when I called.”

"What is 'Jazz's' relationship with the victim?" Prowl asked point blank. "I should clarify, who is the tenant of the apartment in question?"

“They’re close friends, very close. Jazz comes over quite often, but Metro was the actual tenant.”

"I see. Did Metro have any... Enemies?"

“He had many guests but they all appeared friendly. He also was known for spending most of time out and about. I apologize, I really don’t know much else, Detective.”

"Thank you, Orion, for your cooperation. Please do not leave town, as we may be contacting you further as the investigation continues."

With the information stored in his processors, Prowl transformed into his alt-mode and made his way to the Precinct where the "suspect" was waiting. He did not bother with his lights this time, seeing as the urgency was over. He had much to process, and a considerable amount of information to comb through, as well as an interrogation that he was not looking forward to.

Prowl sighed, itching for a cy-garette that he had long-since given up as he returned to his root-mode outside the precinct.

* * *

Jazz didn't resist being brought in, there was no use in trying. He gave the officers his designation and the name of the precinct he worked at before he was ushered into an interrogation room and left there to wait. He was _exhausted_. He had barely gotten half an hour of recharge and desperately wanted either good fuel or a hard drink. He leaned back in the chair as much as he could while cuffed to the desk and closed his optics, he could at least try to nap before anyone came in to shout at him.

That peace only lasted for a second before an enforcer kicked in the door. Barricade. He shot Jazz a nasty grin and stretched the cables in his neck and shoulders with a satisfying squeal of metal.

"Well then, it looks like it's gonna be just you and me," he suddenly paused and pulled out a datapad from his subspace compartment. "Jazz of Staniz, you're being charged with the first-degree murder of Metro of Altihex." He rattled off a few more lines monotonously about rights, and then smirked, and said, "But you know all that already, don'tcha? Says here you work on the force."

Barricade leaned down and over Jazz, bracing himself with both palms flat on the desk. He brought his voice low into a deep rumble, and snarled, "There's nothing I hate more than when good cops turn bad. So tell me, why'd you do it?"

Jazz tried not to laugh in his face about 'Good cops turned bad'. that definitely would end up poorly. He leaned back in the chair as much as he could, as casually as he could, and shot a tired but level look at Barricade. “I ain't the one who killed him. We had an agreement where we could stay at each other's place, I didn't even know he was home."

Barricade sneered. "An 'agreement'? Don't give me that scrap. We have evidence you broke into the habsuite." He circled around the desk slowly, a predatory gleam in his optics. "What were you looking for? Shanix? Valuable tech? Or, are you one of _those_ types?"

Jazz kept eye contact with Barricade as long as he could while he prowled around the desk. "The door was jammed, or didn't you realize that when you broke it in? I tried the code, it worked, the door didn't budge. I knew the window to the hab was usually unlocked so that's how I got in. All I wanted was to wash up and recharge."

Narrowing his optics, Barricade snorted. He put a servo on Jazz's shoulder, a gesture that might have passed for comforting if it weren’t for the hard grip. "A likely story. Alright, tell me then, supposing you did have some sort of arrangement to stay with the mech, what were you doing heading over in the middle of the night?" He leaned in closer and drawled, "Or were these midnight excursions part of your little _'agreement'_, too?"

Like scrap Jazz was going to tell Barricade what he was doing. "I was out, Iacon has a fun nightlife. I stayed out longer than I realized and didn't want to drive myself all the way back to the west end. Metro's was close. I stayed over there a lot, ask any of the neighbors."

Barricade released his grip, and drew himself up to his full height, folding his arms over his chassis. "What the other residents have been saying is that there was a scream in the middle of the night. I show up, and find you and a dead mech. But hey, it doesn't have to be all bad. What I'm hearing is, you were out at the bar, and maybe you had a drink or two, maybe more,"

Barricade paused for a moment. "Maybe you got a little overcharged, and then when you went back to your buddy Metro's, you got a little worked up. It was an accident, a moment of miscalculation."

Jazz was getting very tired of being subtly threatened.

"As much as I wish I was overcharged right now, the murder is recent enough and I am stone cold sober right now. You and I both know that's not true. On top of that, the only 'worked up' it would've gotten would end with someone pinned against a wall, not someone dead on the floor with blunt force trauma." Jazz sneered at the enforcer.

Barricade brought his servo down suddenly, striking Jazz across the face with a sharp clang of metal against metal. Jazz gasped and recoiled with the slap, reaching his free hand up to feel where he was hit. It luckily wasn’t dented but it was definitely scuffed. He wouldn’t be surprised if the black paint on Barricade’s hand was streaked across his cheek.

"Don't you give me that attitude! Do I need to remind you of where you are right now?" He spat out, seething. "I don't give a single fraggin' shred of scrap what you and that other rustbucket would have done tonight, the facts are, he's dead, and you were just recharging peacefully in the other room? This case is as good as closed, all you need to do is admit that you killed him!"

Jazz was precariously close to losing his cool facade. Metro was dead, Jazz didn’t have an alibi he could use, he hadn’t recharged in nearly 20 cycles, and he was stuck in an interrogation room with an aggressive lunatic.

He turned back to Barricade, finally showing a flash of hurt across his face. “I didn’t kill him! He was my friend, he was a safe place to go, what would I have possibly gained by killin’ him? I should be processing this all and mourning him right now, not shoved in a fraggin’ room with the most trigger-happy cop i’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.” Jazz took a shaky vent, willing himself to calm down before Barricade decided he needed to be hit around again. “I was in the fraggin’ room, asleep. Don’t you think if I had killed him I would’ve left?”

Barricade smiled coldly. Jazz felt his spark stall. "Oh, so you think I'm trigger-happy, do you?" Barricade pulled his gun out of its holster, turning it over in his servos, admiring it for a moment, then flicked the safety off and leveled it between Jazz's optics. "Let's continue, shall we? How do I know you were really just sleeping in the other room? The crime scene investigation is still ongoing. Maybe there was something you had to take care of before you could take off."

Jazz tried to lurch back from the gun, knocking the chair he was in back and straining his wrist cables as he tugged on the cuffs locked to the table. Barricade nudged the tip of the barrel lightly against the other mech's helm, a wholly unnecessary reminder.

"So, tell me again, why did you kill him? Was it an act of passion? Or maybe you were just tired of him. I can't even _imagine_ how many mechs you go through in a month, you sick freak. Do they all end up like Metro?"

Jazz's vocalizer made some panicked clicks as he tried to reset it, staring at Barricade and at the hand pressing a gun against his helm and trying to think of what he could even say. He had no doubt that Barricade had decided his guilt and wasn't going to let go of it even if it meant he had to offline Jazz right now. The smirk on Barricade's face only widened, and he brought out an audio recorder.

He clicked on the recording button, and then said in a soothingly calm tone, entirely at odds with the menacing posture he maintained as he stood over Jazz, the gun still pressed to his helm, "It's alright now, it's all going to be alright. I know you did it. You know you did it. It's already done, and it can't be changed. Now you just have to admit it."

Jazz was about to give up hope of getting out of the interrogation room alive when Prowl burst through the door with his service pistol drawn and aimed at Barricade. He could've laughed in relief if he wasn't still so afraid that Barricade would pull the trigger.

"Barricade," Prowl bellowed, "Drop your weapon and step away from the suspect!"

Barricade whipped his head around and shot a look of utter loathing towards the mech standing in the door. "Prowl," He said his name as though it was coating his intake in toxic sludge. "First of all, you should know it's very rude to show up uninvited, and second of all, you've got to be joking, I was slagging microkliks away from getting a confession!" He waved his own gun around as he spoke, gesturing towards the recorder and everything.

When Prowl didn't back down, Barricade let out a furious rev of his engines and then clicked the safety back on and holstered his gun. "Fine! There! Happy now, you miserable little killjoy?"

Jazz visibly relaxed and mouthed a thank you at Prowl when Barricade looked away. He was visibly very shaken. Prowl lowered his pistol to point at the floor when Barricade holstered his own service weapon, but remained on edge and ready. It was clear to him that Barricade was aggravated; unpredictable.

"Barricade: your services are no longer required for this case at this juncture. Please remove yourself from this interrogation room," Prowl spoke carefully; direct and to the point. He stepped to the side to usher Barricade out of the small room, holstering his service weapon finally and righting the overturned chair.

"No longer required? He's my perp! I'm the one who fragging booked him!" Barricade pointed a digit accusingly at Prowl, and sneered at him even as he stormed towards the door, "I don't know what you did to get me off of this case, but you'd better watch your back, Prowler."

The door shut with a resounding thud. Prowl stood perfectly still, servos resting on the back of the chair as he took a moment to regroup. The detective let out a vented sigh and turning to Jazz, extending his servo to assist the mech upright. Jazz offered a shaky smile at the assistance and sunk back into the chair with relief, too shaken to put as much charisma into his smile as he normally would.

Jazz had heard all about Prowl. By-the-book, meticulously organized, and climbed the ranks faster than any one else on the force. He was also a much nicer sight than Barricade.

"These documents say that you are Jazz of Staniz. Is this correct?" Prowl asked passively as he read through the information on the improperly filled out intake document.

"That's right. I'm an enforcer, I work in spec-ops on the west end."

Prowl quirked an optic ridge at that admission. He would need to verify the Enforcer ID but a quick scan through the HR database should clear up any further errors on that part. He had only heard rumors of Jazz through hushed conversations about undercover operations to uncover illegal Engex stills. Some of Jazz's rumored feats were incredible to the point of being borderline unfathomable. In the back of Prowl's processor, he had to admit that he'd been curious to meet this legendary officer. Did he live up to the rumors?

"Jazz. I am Detective Prowl," he introduced, taking a seat across the still-cuffed mech. He kept half an optic on the mech as Prowl read through the rest of the report. "Are you aware of why you are here?"

"Sure I am." Jazz definitely didn’t look as confident as he sounded. He was shaking, both from the fear of almost being shot and the lack of recharge, and his plating was dented and scuffed. His wrists hurt from where he tugged on the cuffs and there was a pretty black paint streak across his cheek from being hit. "Metro was found dead in his apartment and I happened to be staying the night. I had no idea that he was dead, I didn't even know he was home to begin with."

Prowl set the data pad down on the table and reached across to Jazz's bound wrists, intoning gently, "Let’s get these off you," he input the Enforcer Code to release the mechanism. Jazz rubbed his wrists where the cuffs cut into them.

"Thanks. Awful confident I'm not going to try anything, aren't you? Or maybe just that you could take me down if you had to." Jazz laughed a little tiredly. "Wouldn't be wrong with the state I'm in right now."

"No, Jazz; I am confident that you will conduct yourself like a civilized mech. You have not demonstrated aggressive tendencies tonight, and," Prowl leaned in closer, maintaining eye-contact with the mech across from him, "I am very confident in my ability to subdue an individual."

Jazz crossed his arms now that he was able to and leaned back in the chair. If he wasn't being interrogated he would've definitely flirted, he would let himself be _subdued_ by Prowl any day.

Prowl continued. "In any case, I understand that you were present at the scene when Officer Barricade apprehended you. I also understand that you were staying at Metro's apartment that night. What is your relationship with Metro?"

"Metro and I were friends. Close friends. I've known him for a long time. Spent a lot of nights over there."

"I see," Prowl said as he made a note on the data pad absently, then continued his line of questioning, "Approximately what time did you arrive at his apartment, and where were you for the cycles leading up to your arrival at the apartment?"

"I got there around 2:15, 2:30. Before that I was wandering in the downtown area. Good nightlife, nice music scene."

Not technically a lie. He just _was_ the music scene.

"I stayed out longer than I thought, we had an agreement that we could crash at each other's places so I headed to his apartment since it was nearby." exactly like he had told Barricade.

Prowl frowned as his processors began working harder in his helm. Things weren't adding up quite right. "Being such close friends with the victim, were you aware of any enemies or factions that would be intent on doing him harm?" This was the big question. If there was a hint of an answer, Prowl felt that this may be the clue that could potentially help close several cases that lay cold on his desk.

Jazz thought for a moment before he answered. "Not that I knew of, he never really talked about his home life, but I do know that he had a lot of... well, I'll call them admirers. He used 't dance at a little spot called The Aurora, caught a lot of eyes. He had people over a lot. Always got gifts and letters. One of 'em might've gotten jealous of the rest and took it out the wrong way." Jazz picked at a joint in his finger idly.

Prowl looked exhausted. If he was thinking any harder Jazz was sure he would've been able to hear it "Did Metro ever talk to you about his admirers, drop names or locations?" Prowl asked, grabbing hold of the thread with tenacity. This may be a viable lead, but he knew that Jazz was holding a portion of the story back. If he wanted to learn it, he was sure that he would have to gain Jazz's trust. Likely not something that would happen overnight.

"Not anything viable, most of 'em used fake names. I might be able to dig something up on it, I have a few sources-" _Coworkers_ "But I'm not sure that's allowed, seeing as how I'm a suspect. Doubt they'd trust you though."

Prowl vented a sigh. "At present, I have no hard evidence to hold you as a suspect beyond the allotted cycles for questioning. I do not believe that you are the perpetrator of the crime, but I would remind you to please remain in the city." He stood, indicating that the interview was over.

Good. He was free to go. He'd love to see Barricade's face when Prowl told him he let Jazz go, but at the risk of his own face getting hit in, he decided better of it. Right now he needed a stiff drink and a long nap, and he had to drive all the way across town to get back to his own apartment.

Before Jazz could leave, Prowl added, "I will be in contact with you within the next megacycle; it would be in your best interest to be available."

Jazz offered a tired half smirk to the enforcer before he left. "I'll be available, don't you worry about that Prowler."

* * *

Prowl watched Jazz leave with resigned trepidation. Although Prowl was 92.73% certain of Jazz's innocence, he wasn't certain that Jazz would be true to his word and be available. Hope only went so far.

He mulled over Jazz's words; his remarks about Metro's line of work, and he felt like a filament had just exploded in his processor as a new potential lead made itself known. Just as soon as his Eureka moment had passed, a wave of dread washed over him. He sighed, feeling more exhausted than he had all night. He needed to make a call... to a mech that he'd hoped that he wouldn't have to use again.

He needed Getaway.

But that could wait until tomorrow, a tiny voice whispered in his head.

Once back in his modest, spartan apartment, Prowl sat heavily on his berth and finally let his frame relax. His doorwings drooped marginally as he rested his helm in his servos, covering his optics. Another body added to his caseload and he still hadn't made any breaks in his other cases. Had he been too hasty and brash in taking the rank of Detective? Was he really the mech his superiors considered him to be? His interview with Jazz hadn't helped put his processor to rest; Prowl was certain that this mech was innocent of the crime but it was obvious that Jazz knew a lot more than he was willing to give Prowl. This case was far larger than a simple crime of passion, and he had a feeling that the trail of bodies was going to add up.

With a sigh, Prowl disarmed himself, placing his service weapon in the biometrically locking drawer at his berthside then disengaged the lights before laying down for recharge.


	2. Decepticon Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens unnecessarily

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is where our continuity got a little fucked up because none of us paid attention to the parent media and we threw TFA Blitzwing into it for funsies.

The dim light of the streetlamp on the main street hardly illuminated the side alley, throwing long dark shadows. The glow of a red scope and optic trained on some poor mech cowering below the large triple changer. His optic narrowed while the scope focused in. A hand clasped around a nameless bot’s neck, Blitzwing couldn’t be bothered to remember his name, picking him up effortlessly and pinning him to the wall of the apartment complex. His struggling was fruitless.

“T-this is a mis-misunderstanding! I-I don’t-don’t know where Starscream is! I swear-”

_Whirr _

“Shut your fragging mouth or I’ll crush your helm” That shut him up. The harsh red visor lit the bots face. A snarl escaped his second face before pulling away. 

_Whirr_

His face snapped back to the familiar cold calculating blue face with the ever-present frown. This was pointless. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with this moron. He wasn’t lying, after years of being around unsavory bots for most of his life he could tell when someone was lying. Frankly, he was quite good at it. It also helped when you can lie between your teeth effortlessly. Sighing, he dropped the mech. The other coughed and quickly got to his feet. Panic clear on his face as he looked up at the intimidating bot.

“You’re useless to me, get out of here before-”

_Whirr _

A wide jagged smile leers down at the smaller mech. Bending down to meet the blue started gaze. “I’ll eat your spark and drink your energon, hahHAHAHhaha sounds good ja? hahaHAHA”

With that the small brown mech scampered off to whatever shady part of town he had come from. Blitzwing knew he wouldn’t say a word. No one would bother with some junkie, and no one messed with those who followed Megatron.

The icy personality spun back into view suddenly as sirens rang out. Blitzwing turned to face the entrance of the alley, the cops quickly transforming.

_"Slag." _He took off running. Whatever was happening he didn’t need to be involved.

“FREEZE! STOP WHERE YOU ARE!”

Blitzwing needed to get to an open space, this cramped backstreet wasn’t doing him any favors. Faceplate spinning once again, hot red anger pushed him down the narrow lane. He couldn’t get caught, not now. Who knows what Megatron would do to him if he did. The enforcers stayed hot on his heels. Growling he swerved down another tight lane. It was dark down here, and if he was lucky they wouldn’t catch sight of him before he could get a chance to transform.

He paused at a junction. The shouts of the other bots close behind him. “Sir! Requesting backup, we got a runner!”

“Stop in the name of the Iacon Law enforcement!” A gunshot rang around him and he ducked.

With a click of his tongue, Blitzwing elected to go right, cursing the fact that he didn’t know this part of Iacon as well as he should. Red optics widened and he smirked. There, an open space. Maybe his luck was starting to turn around.

A sharp pain suddenly bloomed through his side. He screamed as he fell to the ground, groaning in pain. Turning his helm, an enforcer stood before him with what looked like a stun baton. He tried to push himself back onto his feet, grunting when someone tackled him. Stasis cuffs were strapped onto his wrists, restricting his movement even more. His red visor glared darkly at the enforcers as he snarled.

“LET GO,I didn’t do anything! Fraggin-”

_Whirr _

“What ever happened I have nothing to do with it. I ran because-”

_Whirr _

“I wanted to play a game of tag and I’m it!! HahaHAHA”

* * *

"Barricade: your services are no longer required for this case at this juncture. Please remove yourself from this interrogation room," Prowl spoke carefully; direct and to the point. He stepped to the side to usher Barricade out of the small room, holstering his service weapon finally and righting the overturned furniture.

"No longer required? He's my perp! I'm the one who fragging booked him!" Barricade protested. He sent a quick comm to the service desk, who pinged him back and confirmed that, actually, he was needed, but for some other interrogation. Barricade pointed a digit accusingly at Prowl, and sneered at him even as he stormed towards the door, "I don't know what you did to get me off of this case, but you'd better watch your back, Prowler."

The door shut with a resounding thud and left Barricade stewing in his own anger. He hastily double checked his assignment on his datapad. Who in the Pit was he supposed to be interrogating, if it wasn't the mech he brought in? Barricade stepped into the interrogation room actually marked on his datapad, then abruptly froze in the doorway at the sight of the familiar mech. Brilliant. Just when he thought his day couldn't get any worse.

Clearing the static out of his vocal synthesizer, Barricade sat himself down on the chair across the desk and wordlessly glanced through some of the lines on his datapad. He quickly got the general gist of things, and began, "Alright, let's see, it says here your name's Blitzwing. You're being charged for fleeing a peace officer, as well as general misdemeanor." He read off a few more obligatory lines, and then scowled and said in a tone that plainly suggested Blitzwing ought to have known better, "Can you tell me what the scrap you were doing at that time of night, in that neighborhood?"

"I was looking for my friend." His tone was calm and collected. "I heard he was in the area. So I went to find him Is it so wrong to go looking for someone?"

_ Whirr_

"Oh officer~ Have I been a bad bot? Do I need to be punished~ bwahahHAHAHA" The jagged mouth twisted into a sneer.

_Whirr_

"I don't see how what I did was wrong. Frankly, you peace officers have a strange way of bringing someone in peacefully "

"Your_ friend_," Barricade repeated, not even bothering to keep the disbelief out of his voice. He narrowed his optics at the triple-changer's abrasive personality shifts. Barricade was well-acquainted with Blitzwing's... unique personalities, thanks to how often he dealt with Megatron and his cronies, but the abrupt shifting back and forth still unnerved him. At the jibe about the officers, he clenched his servo into a fist and banged it on the desk with enough force to leave a dent.

"That's enough! I'm the one asking the questions here, got it?" He continued on, irritated, "Let's say you were trying to find your _‘friend’_, at two in the morning, in a seedy neighborhood even newsparks know to avoid." He shot a pointed glare at the other mech. "If you really haven't done anything, then why did you fragging run from an officer? Surely even a_ bolthead like you_ would know that that's an offense in and of itself."

_Whirr _

"Well maybe if you're so called peace officers didn't open fire on me. I would have stopped running, you chafing scrap heap!" Blitzwing leaned over the table, fists clenching. "But NO, I should have crushed-"

_Whirr_

"What I'm trying to say is" Leaning back, stead optic focused on the enforcer. "I got startled by the sudden rush of officers. Do you really expect me to just stop and let them shoot me? Are you going to put me in jail for wanting to not get hurt? That doesn’t sound like a very good cop. Now does it?” His voice lowered by the end of the statement.

For a brief moment, Barricade put his face into his servos, leaning his elbows on the table. He hadn't known the other enforcers had opened fire on Blitzwing. He halfway wished they'd succeeded in offlining or at least _injuring_ the other mech so that it wouldn't have ended up his responsibility to deal with him.

Straightening back up, he said, "They wouldn't have opened fire unless you had given them a good reason to! What were you doing at the time? Did you threaten anyone?"

"No" Optic unwavering "I got startled, tried to leave and they shot at me. That's all. Officer " A small smirk appeared on his blue face "Now if I can get these annoying stasis cuffs off. I'll be out of your servos."

_Whirr_

"And right into the nearest cabaret bar hAHAHA! The dream police, They live inside my HEAD~ BWAHA"

"I feel like you don't understand what's going on, so let it make it very clear to you," Barricade growled, low and threatening. "Right now, you're hardly being charged for anything major. But the fact that you fled from capture tells me that there was something more going on, and I intend to find out what that is." Barricade stood up, and made his way around the desk. If this idiotic game was going to continue, he wasn't going to let the other mech have all the fun.

Fixing his optics on Blitzwing's, he leaned in close and hissed, "If you're not gonna tell me what it is that you did, they're gonna bring in someone much worse than me to deal with you, so I suggest you start talking."

Barricade knew that the universe was a cruel and uncaring wasteland, but right then he could've sworn that it was being particularly cruel to him on purpose. He snapped bolt upright at the massive servos suddenly gripping his shoulders, and had to reboot his tactical subsystems three times so that they weren't all just pinging him like crazy telling his processor how absolutely fragged he was as Megatron’s voice filled his audials.

“So, Barricade, you take my… personal kindness in taking you in with my own, and instead of using it to make all of our jobs easier... You’re stepping on my pedes. You know what happens to bots who get in my way.” His servos squeezed lightly, "Please, tell me you have a reason for being in here instead of doing work for me." It wasn't a question.

"Well," Barricade began uncertainly. The truth was that he had been _furious_ at a _certain detective_ for ruining his masterful interrogation, and then knew that he wouldn't be able to get anything out of Blitzwing the moment he walked in through the door. Of course, he still had to go through the motions, and so he figured he'd take a bit of his stress out on the triple-changer before letting him go. Not that any of that mattered anymore, since Megatron had apparently seen fit to come down to the precinct himself.

Barricade slowly turned around to face Megatron, and grimaced internally at the intensity of the judgment in those red optics. It wasn't safe to lie to him, but it wasn't going to be worth his time, either.

"It's a bit of a long story," he finally said, with a defeated expression. "Won't happen again, I swear on my spark." He then turned to the desk, and bitterly ground out as he undid the locking mechanism on the stasis cuffs, "Blitzwing, it seems you were charged unjustly. You're free to go."

Megatron relaxed his grip, stepping back from Barricade. His optics cut from the enforcer to the triple-changer. “See that it doesn’t, Enforcer. I’m not paying you to cause more trouble for me.” He smiled unkindly, optics slits of red in the dim room, “No one is invaluable, and I will not suffer inconveniences lightly.” He stomped around the desk, drawing himself up to his full, intimidating height, his helm nearly scraping the ceiling, and pulled the triple-changer to his pedes.

“Come, Blitzwing. You owe me an explanation.” Megatron’s voice promised violence at the interruption of one of his few quiet nights.

* * *

It was dark, the streets dingy and disgusting below him. Without the bright light of day, Iacon looked just as low as the Pits of Kaon. Disgusting.

Megatron was only a few blocks from the police station, Blitzwing in tow, when he snapped, jerking the triple-changer into an ally and pushing him against a dirty wall.

“Why is it that you seem to find it impossible to obey my orders?!” he curled a servo around the bulk of Blitzwing’s shoulder, the other resting lightly, threateningly, against his spark chamber. “I have no time to suffer your failures again. I need Starscream found. He cannot be let loose,” he looked at Blitzwing disdainfully, back bending so he could meet his minion’s optics, “and apparently, neither can you.”

"Yes sir, I'm sorry sir. It won't happen again I swear to Primus himself-" Blitzwing paused for a moment to get his bearings. "Starscream was seen in that area a few hours ago. I was merely getting information from the locals when the enforcers arrived. I'm not sure why but it was something to do with the apartment complex I was by. It's a few blocks away from the Aurora nightclub."

Megatron pushed him harder against the wall, then stepped back, scrubbing a servo over his face. He realized it wasn’t worth it to berate Blitzwing, he wasn’t the type of mech who reacted well to punishment.

“Report in tomorrow with any and all information you’ve found. Soundwave will want it all followed up on.” Megatron turned back as he reached the end of the alley, “And for spark’s sake, Blitzwing, next time you get yourself arrested, try to have it happen during the day cycle.”

“Of course sir. Thank you sir.-”

With that, Megatron walked off, lamenting the hours of personal time lost to this foolishness. It was going to be a long day.


End file.
